"The Karenni, one of Burma?s main ethnic groups, have been suffering for over half a century from military aggression and abuses by successive ruling juntas. Now they are facing a new threat: the damming of rivers across their state by Chinese investors. In January 2010, the state-owned Datang Corporation of China signed a Memorandum of Understanding with Burma?s regime to build three dams in Karenni State, including a 600 Megawatt dam on the mainstream Salween, and two others on its tributaries, the Pawn and Thabet rivers. Plans by Chinese and Thai companies to build dams on the Salween in Burma have been highly controversial for years for their human costs and potential environmental impact. The seven planned dams are all sited in confl ict zones; dam workers have been killed by land mines and artillery. Military offensives in the area of the southernmost planned dam have recently caused thousands of refugees to fl ee to Thailand. In Karenni State, engineers guarded by armed soldiers are currently surveying for both the Ywathit Dam on the Salween and the Pawn River Dam. The Pawn Dam is likely to be built fi rst to power construction at Ywathit and will be devastating for the Yintale people who live along the Pawn River and now number just 1,000..."